Bliss by Hilary Fields

laugh about Aunt Pauline’s proclivities. But then, Maggie hadn’t had Pauline for a guardian while she was growing up, nor suffered all the awkwardness that had entailed.
    When Pauline Wilde had first had occasion to get acquainted with her painfully shy preteen niece, her women’s lib heyday had already been over for many years, though she continued to run “clinics” and write guest columns for various media outlets. Royalties from her seminal books had continued to subsidize her freewheeling lifestyle, which had taken her from Amsterdam to Bangkok, Brazil to Berlin and back, pursuing a career in cultural anthropology with a specialty in women’s sexual norms. Sera vividly remembered her first encounter with her “hippie-dippy aunt,” as her dad had teasingly liked to call his big sister. It had been both an awkward and an intriguing moment in her adolescence. Had she known that, less than a year later, the woman who had asked her point-blank if she’d ever examined her “love-bud” in the mirror would be her sole guardian in the wake of the senseless car accident that had claimed her parents’ lives, Sera would probably have run screaming into the night.
    But Pauline’s generous heart had more than compensated for her total lack of filter on word and deed. Upon inheriting her thirteen-year-old niece, she’d put a screeching halt to her travels and settled down in Serafina’s home city to carve out a niche as a women’s studies professor at New York’s New School for Social Research. And she’d done it all, Sera knew, so that she could raise the orphaned girl and give her some much-needed stability. It wasn’t until Sera was safely off to culinary school that Pauline retired from teaching and followed in the footsteps of another female sexual pioneer, Georgia O’Keeffe, absconding to New Mexico.
    Enmeshed in her own mishagos, Sera hadn’t really had much idea of what Pauline’s life out here looked like. Apparently, she’d made some pretty wise business decisions for an aging hippy. This three-bedroom house and the store in town weren’t even the whole extent of it. Pauline’s book royalties still brought in a fair chunk of change to this day—and now, it seemed, she wanted her favorite niece to take advantage of all this largesse by helping her get started with her very own bakery.
    Sera’s embarrassment paled by comparison with her gratitude for the strong women in her life. “Anyhow,” she told Margaret once her sponsor’s laughter died down, “the upshot is, I seem to have a bit of a unique opportunity brewing here. It’s going to take some time to see what that amounts to, and I’m actually really glad of that. I want to open myself to whatever possibilities present themselves, you know?”
    â€œI do know,” Margaret said approvingly, “and I think it sounds great, provided you keep your head on straight. Now listen, hon, CSI Miami ’s about to start, and I’ve gotta order some dinner before they stop delivering and I’m forced to gnaw on the curtains for sustenance. But before we say good night…”
    Sera grinned, knowing what was coming.
    Sure enough… “Run your plans for tomorrow down for me, sweetie,” Maggie prompted.
    Sera rubbed her forehead once again, trying to massage away the last vestiges of headache and clear her thoughts. “Right now we’re just focusing on what’s right in front of us, the little stuff.” Sera’s lips twisted wryly. “‘One day at a time,’ right? Isn’t that what you’re always telling me? For tomorrow, Pauline’s going to show me around downtown in the morning and we’ll see the plaza and the most famous sights. She swears all else can wait until after I’ve had a taste of the City Different, which she likes to call ‘Fanta Se.’ Then we'll go see her